THE MAN IN THE IRON CAGE (A sermon on apostasy) Hebrews 6:4-9 We come, this morning, to one of the most difficult passages in the entire Bible. The topic is apostasy. The text is Hebrews chapter 6… Hebrews 6:4-9 As Christians who believe the teaching of the Bible, we have come to believe that our salvation is God's work, from beginning to end. We understand that people are saved when, in repentance, they turn in faith to Jesus Christ. There is a DECISION that must be made on the part of the individual. For people are not BORN Christians. As I often heard when growing up, the idea that just because one is born in America does makes one a Christian any more than being born in a garage makes one an automobile. Where we were born, or To what parents we were born doesn't make one a Christian. Rather, we become Christians when we each, by faith, trust Christ as our Lord and Savior. But, as Christians who believe the teaching of the Bible, we believe that even that act of deciding to follow Jesus is not made in some sort of spiritual vacuum that is void of God's Holy Spirit or His convicting of us of our sins. We are saved, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, "by grace, through faith" but even that faith didn't come out of the blue. It was a gift from God. So God's granting us the faith to believe in His Son was all part of God's plan to save us. And God is not a quitter. So what He determined to do (in saving us) He has promised He would complete. The Haehnles – part of this congregation – have on the license plate of one of their cars PHIL 1.6, meaning Philippians 1:6 which reads, "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion." So, our salvation is of God. We are the recipients of God's plan to save some, and to save those whom He does save…completely. It's not a partial salvation, wherein God does 80% and we do 20% or even where God does 99% and we do the remaining 1%. It is not as though God has a plan to get us from the top of one skyscraper to the top of another and he promises, "I will get you 99% of the way there, but the final 1% is up to you!" That would be a plan for disaster. It is all of God. Amen? Amen. But then we have these verses in Hebrews, and it sure sounds like they are describing someone who at one time was in love with Jesus and now they are destined to hell. And how can that be if God finishes what he starts? Many years ago, I read (for the first time) John Bunyan's classic work, written back in 1670, The Pilgrim's Progress. Since then I have read that book 2 other times. Besides the Bible, it is, I would say, my all time favorite book. And each time I have read it I have read it in the old English. Only 30 or so pages into the book, Christian (the pilgrim who is on his way to the Celestial City, i.e., heaven), comes across a man named the Interpreter. This Interpreter explains Biblical mysteries to Christian, usually making use of metaphors or real examples from life. After covering a few of these mysteries, the Interpreter introduces Christian to a man in an iron cage. Let me read that section to you… pp. 31-33 Now, said Christian, let me go hence. Nay, stay, said the Interpreter, till I have shewed thee a little more, and after that thou shalt go on thy way. So he took him by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad; he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if he would break his heart. Then said Christian, What means this? At which the Interpreter bid him talk with the man. Then said Christian to the man, What art thou? The man answered, I am what I was not once. {85} CHR. What wast thou once? MAN. The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes, and also in the eyes of others; I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither. [Luke 8:13] CHR. Well, but what art thou now? MAN. I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. Oh, now I cannot! CHR. But how camest thou in this condition? MAN. I left off to watch and be sober. I laid the reins, upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me: I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent. {86} Then said Christian to the Interpreter, But is there no hope for such a man as this? Ask him, said the Interpreter. Nay, said Christian, pray, Sir, do you. INTER. Then said the Interpreter, Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair? MAN. No, none at all. INTER. Why, the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful. MAN. I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6:6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19:14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10:28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary. {87} INTER. For what did you bring yourself into this condition? MAN. For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm. INTER. But canst thou not now repent and turn? {88} MAN. God hath denied me repentance. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity, eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity! INTER. Then said the Interpreter to Christian, Let this man's misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting caution to thee. CHR. Well, said Christian, this is fearful! God help me to watch and be sober, and to pray that I may shun the cause of this man's misery! The man in the iron cage is the apostate. He is the man of Hebrews chapter 6. At one time he seemed like he was on his way also to the Celestial City. He calls himself a former "fair and flourishing Professor." But no longer. Indeed, now he cannot get out of his iron cage, the inference being that he will spend eternity in that cage. The questions before us this morning are two. They are questions that every generation has had to deal with that takes the scriptures seriously. The two questions are these: 1. Does Hebrews 6 teach that a person can LOSE their salvation? 2. What does it take to reach a point that one can never get out of the iron cage…that is, they can NEVER repent and be forgiven, accepted and saved by Christ? So, let's take these two questions as the outline for our examination of Hebrews 6… 1. Does Hebrews 6 teach that a person can LOSE their salvation? There is within the church, as there has been from the very early years of the church's formation, a bit of a divide among those who call themselves Christians. On the one hand there are those…like the Haehnles, with their Philippians 1:6 license plate…who are quite convinced that what God starts He finishes. By the late 16th century, in general, these people came to be called Calvinists. Not because they agreed with EVERYTHING that John Calvin wrote, but because they were in basic agreement with him that salvation is God's work, not man's. But even as Calvinism has continued to have a bit of an upper hand among evangelical schools, seminaries and churches, there are plenty that would say, "Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that once a person is saved they can live however they want and that God is going to say, 'Oh, that's fine with me?'" And so while those who have called themselves Calvinists have, rightly or wrongly, sort of adopted the idea that "once saved, always saved," this second group has latched on to the many warnings that are found in the scriptures wherein even people like the apostle Paul warn about becoming spiritually "shipwrecked." And, they would say, "Did not Jesus warn of many who would call Jesus 'Lord' and he would say, "Depart from me you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you?" So just because someone SAYS they believe in Jesus, or PRAYS a prayer of asking Jesus to save them doesn't mean their eternal state has been set.